Columbia, SC (WLTX) - Richland County deputies and Columbia police say a recent crackdown on violent crime has been working, but it needs to continue, if the senseless deaths in the community are going to stop.
Sheriff Leon Lott and Chief Skip Holbrook held a joint news conference Thursday afternoon with an updated on a 60-day task force that targeted the top criminals in the area and illegal gun use.
Lott says his officers alone confiscated 202 guns during the effort that began in late April, and combined with CPD, there were almost 300 weapons seizures.
"That's a lot of guns," Lott said. "These are not legitimate guns. These are guns from the streets. These are bad people that's got gun."
Six of the guns stolen from Richland County were taken from cars. As part of the effort, officers have been educating people to not leave guns in vehicles, and it appears to be working.
A total of 40 arrests were made in that time frame, including 17 on the county's "top offenders" list. But that lists keeps changing.
"As we arrest one or two off this list, someone takes their place," Lott said. "These are the ones we've having the most problem with."
When they announced the task force, Lott and Holbrook said they looked at the data from the first part of the year, and determined that a small number of people commit most of the crimes in the community, and were also wanted on gun crimes. They also found that the same guns are being used in multiple crimes.
With that data in hand, the two said they'd use the intelligence they gather to target certain people. The sheriff says they're not first time offenders, but people who've "been in a lot of trouble."
"We're getting the worst of the worst off the street," Lott said. "We're not going to allow [rampant crime] to happen. We're going to make sure you don't play the wild wild west."
In fact, Holbrook said just hours before the news conference, his department had a case where a person was stealing a water bottle from a gas station, and pulled out a gun, thereby increasing the danger of the crime.
"It's absolutely absurd," he said about some of the crime they're seeing.
But Lott said it's not just about the arrests and numbers: it's about keeping people alive. He pointed to photos of several teenagers who've died in gun violence just this year.
"They're real people, it's real people, there are families that are hurting," Lott said. "It's not a number."
Because of the success, the law enforcement leaders said they want to continue the effort until mid-August. And they're asking people to come forward.
Anyone with information can report crime anonymously by calling Crimestoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC.